in this desert, how we blossom and we cease
by Some Enchanted Evening
Summary: 'She tries to be strong, for Kim. It is easier to stay awake and wait for Kim's nightmares, than to fall asleep and have her own – the knife biting into her throat, the tang of her own blood in her mouth, the sour breath in her face, the terrible images her mind had conjured of what might have become of her daughter.' Lenore Mills rebuilds, post 'Taken 2.'


**Author's Note:** I think this is born of my frustration of any thinly written female character, especially when a good actress like Famke Janssen is so awfully under-utilized (it's insult on top of injury!). So here's a little post Taken 2 character exploration, with hopes that the character will be expanded in the third movie!

If you enjoy, please take a moment to drop a line! :)

**Disclaimer:** None of the characters or trademarks below belong to me, yada yada, no money is being made on this piece. You know the drill. :)

* * *

She tries to be strong, for Kim.

Kim had nightmares every night when she first came home, nightmares that had Lenore curled around her in the bed until dawn finally broke in the morning, nightmares that were finally starting to go away that now rear their heads again. She'd take them away if she could, but it's a comfort to have Kim slip beneath the sheets as though she's six again. It is easier to stay awake and wait for Kim's nightmares, than to fall asleep and have her own – the knife biting into her throat, the tang of her own blood in her mouth, the sour breath in her face, the terrible images her mind had conjured of what might have become of her daughter.

When Kim leaves for college at the end of the summer, when they bundle her up and send her an hour up the coast (and could Lenore ever bear to send her further away again when even this distance felt wrong?), the bed, the house – it all feels too big, too cold and empty, with her footsteps echoing off the tile and reverberating back to her. She thinks about selling it, but it's been Kim's home for ten years, and she fought Stuart so hard for it that it seems wrong not to keep it now.

That fight had been easily won after they returned from Istanbul – things with Stuart in general became easier after he heard from Lenore's mother what had happened halfway across the world. He'd pulled Lenore to him with one arm, Kim with the other, and whispered that he was sorry, how glad he was that they were okay, and it had been as though the last terrible year of fighting and lawyers and threats had never happened. The last time Lenore had seen him, they had been screaming at one another at the top of their lungs; seeing them again, he'd held them and promised everything would be all right, as though he could make it so.

Perhaps he wishes they could go back – he had hovered for nearly a month, stopping by unexpectedly to check in on the two of them, and it reminds Lenore that he _did _love them both, once. But it also reminds her of how sharply her life has been divided into before and after, how little sense his world of white picket fences and cocktail parties makes to her now. Stuart is whole and Lenore is fractured, and they'll never fit together again.

Her captors had called her brave. Bryan had, too, her hand clasped in his as the taxi raced towards Kim at the embassy, _you were brave, Lenny. _She hates it, because it doesn't feel true; she hates it, because she doesn't know what it means. Is she brave because she didn't die – or would she have been braver if she had? Is she brave because she forces herself forward, makes herself go to work with a scarf around her neck to hide the scar on her neck? It's a small mark, and she's overreacting, but she's terrified of someone asking about it, of having to explain how not-brave she was – how not-brave she still is. She hates the mark for the reminder it is, and yet loves it for being the one scar she can see, compared to the ones she carries inside. When those scars keep her awake at night, pacing the floor and mindlessly watching infomercials until the next day begins and it's time to do it all over again, Lenore doesn't feel very brave at all.

Bryan notices right away – of course he does, those are the very things he is trained to look for, weaknesses, fissures, places where a person might falter and Lenore is full of them now. He drives them to visit Kim one Saturday and Lenore's asleep in the passenger's seat before they've left the driveway, her head slumped against the window. When she wakes up as they pull on campus, Bryan's watching her with the same scrutinizing expression she used to hate so much, the one that used to make her feel like a suspect or target rather than his wife. "What?" she snaps, cringing even as she speaks at how on edge she sounds.

It doesn't faze him. "You're tired," he replies, in that gravelly voice of his, and she manages to bite back _no shit, Bryan_ as he reaches over and swipes a thumb over her cheekbone, smearing the concealer she caked on to cover the circles under her eyes, because the last thing she wants to do is worry Kim.

She tells him it doesn't matter, and she opens the door.

* * *

He comes over for dinner the next night, and they struggle to find their footing without Kim's presence balancing them. It's heavy, what's between them. It's never been easy, because some people end a marriage because they fall out of love and some people end a marriage because it hurts too much to stay in it, and their case has always been the latter. She'll never forget the look in his eyes when they put the knife to her throat, the way a moment's glance had spoken of a thousand regrets and sorrows and apologies. She'll never forget that even in her darkest moment, she never, ever doubted he'd come back for her. She'd been afraid that they would kill him, or kill her, or kill them both – and most of all, worst of all, that they would find and hurt Kim – but when she was told she'd simply been left behind, she'd known it wasn't true.

He looks out of place in the kitchen, on the couch, the way he always does in this house. Lenore pours them some wine and he flips the television to Law & Order; she's reminded how much he enjoys that show, and how annoying she used to find it that he figures out who the culprit is in the first ten minutes and always announces it to the room. But now all she thinks is that it's better than infomercials, and there's something charming in his smile when he makes his guess.

He's right, of course. In this arena, Bryan usually is.

She doesn't realize she's falling asleep until she feels Bryan take the wine glass from her hand before he wrapping an arm around her shoulders, pulling her against the breadth of his chest. She murmurs a half-hearted protest, even as she sinks into the comfort of being embraced.

"It's okay," he says, his voice a soothing rumble against her cheek, his hand cradling the back of her head. "You're okay, Lenny."

She wishes he would stop saying that. She thinks he wants it so badly to be true – not just for her, but for Kim, for the three of them together. She can't fault him for that, for being the person he is – orderly, direct, with little understanding of how messy emotions can be. When Bryan sees a problem, he wants to solve it or eliminate it, but that's his world – not hers, and certainly not Kim's.

But it's the first night she sleeps through since arriving home, the two of them cramped on the couch. When Lenore wakes up, she wonders if that had been his plan in inviting himself over all along.

* * *

Kim calls her every night. Lenore doesn't tell Bryan. Kim calls him a few times a week, as well, and sometimes he'll put her on speaker as their daughter fills them in about classes and clubs, about roommates and reading assignments, as though she is any other college student. She says the things that she knows her father will want to hear, the things that she thinks will ease his mind, and Bryan, desperate to believe, clings to her chatter.

When Kim calls Lenore, sometimes they don't speak for long stretches of time; many times, Kim asks in a whisper so her roommate won't hear if Lenore will stay on the line until Kim falls asleep. Just hearing one another breathing on either end of the line is comforting, and Lenore waits until she hears the deep, even cadence before she hangs up the phone.

"Do you think it'll ever feel normal again?" Kim asks her one night, and she doesn't have to ask what _it _means – life. Love. Everything.

"I don't know, sweetie," Lenore answers honestly, and with no small amount of guilt – she should be that semblance of normalcy for her daughter, that rock in the storm, that's her job as a mother, but Lenore's still trying to figure out this new world, too.

But Kim's breath releases on a rush of relief, and Lenore thinks it must be nice to hear something else other than _you're okay_. Perhaps instead Kim wanted to know it was all right to be not-okay.

They're not-okay and not-brave; they're survivors, and that counts for something.

* * *

Bryan takes her to the shooting range.

"I hate guns," Lenore reminds him – she does, has as long as she can remember, but the feeling intensified when she married him. She had been so afraid a gun would take him away from her, from Kim…and for a long time, it had, just not in the way she had most feared.

"I know," he says in that maddeningly calm way of his, the way that says he's decided the best course and everyone else should fall in line. "I just think it would make you feel better if you knew how to fire one."

He'd wanted to teach her twice before, when they first married and he was gone so much, and then when they divorced and she had custody of Kim. _Not everyone solves their problems with bullets, Bryan_, she had told him, but now she wonders if he maybe had a point. She hadn't had access to a gun in Istanbul, but maybe she would have felt better knowing that all she needed was one in her hands. The feeling of utter helplessness, of being at the mercy of the men who held her, is the hardest thing to reconcile.

She wonders what the instructors at the range think, when they approach to help and Bryan waves them away. The recoil on the first shot takes her completely by surprise; she doesn't even come close to the target, and the gun nearly falls from her hands. She flinches.

"Here," Bryan says, and he steps behind her, his hands closing around hers. "Make sure to hold steady."

To her surprise, she likes the feeling of the cold metal in her grip, the rush of power the release of the trigger gives her. Even more, she likes the feeling of Bryan's solid presence behind her, and most of all she likes the feeling of his body beneath her hands when they go back to her house and fuck in the kitchen against the counter, in the shower with the water running over them, in the bed still sopping wet, like two drowning people clinging to each other for salvation.

It's strange, the way it is different and the same all at once after so many years; it's a bit scary, how easily they fall back into a cadence with one another. It's felt inevitable for awhile, but they've managed to dance around the edge of propriety for an impressively long time – not quite exes anymore, but calling it 'friends' hadn't felt right either. They've been in the inbetween for so long that it feels good to finally cross that line, as ill-advised as it may prove to be.

But then, she ran away from him so far and so fast that it really is no surprise that she ricocheted and crashed back into him. She should have seen it coming.

She's exhausted afterwards, as though she's wrung out, and she shivers as the sweat on her body starts to cool. It feels good on a primal level, too – she hasn't had sex in nearly a year, and it's been even longer than that since it was any good, anything other than perfunctory. Every muscle in her body is blissfully relaxed as she rests her cheek against Bryan's chest, listening to his still rapid heartbeat as he runs furrows through her damp hair with his fingers while they both catch their breath. In the morning she'll wonder how she could have done something so stupid, but at the moment all she is aware of is how every nerve ending still hums with latent pleasure.

"Shit," the word rushes out of her lips as she exhales, and Bryan lets out a bark of laughter, his hand sliding down to encase the ball of her shoulder. "Oh my god."

She means it as a good thing, but she can't help but notice the way his fingers tighten around her, like she's going to run again, like he'll need to stop her. It should make her feel trapped. Somehow it makes her feel safe.

* * *

"I have to go to Slovakia for three days next week," Bryan tells her one morning. "Visiting dignitaries, apparently."

Mornings waking up together are becoming more and more frequent, and Lenore can see the ways he is trying to subtly sneak into the crevices of her life – his toothbrush and razor in the bathroom, his shirts in the empty dresser drawer. He thinks she hasn't noticed but she has, and she's already decided she likes it, that it's comforting, so she lets him go on thinking he's fooling her.

Lenore smiles into her pillow. "I'm not going," she says, and to her surprise, laughter bubbles from her lips. She's never laughed at anything even vaguely related to Istanbul. A psychiatrist would probably tell her she was crazy for doing so now, but it makes her feel better. Bryan's surprised too, but he laughs as well, and if it doesn't feel quite like healing it is at least on that road.

"You'll be careful, won't you?" she asks, and it's back again, that twist of worry in the pit of her belly that was her constant companion when they were married. She had never stopped worrying, not completely – he's Kim's father, and she loves him. But when she didn't know where he was, what he was doing, it was easier to push that fear to the back of her mind, and now it rears its head again, reminding her that he might seem invincible at times but that doesn't make it so.

"I'm not the one who will need to be careful," he jokes, the corner of his mouth quirked up in a teasing smile. But she doesn't see the amusement in his face when she looks at him just then, but the scars on his hands and arms, the way he stands and stretches stiff muscles, the way he moves just a bit slower than he used to, the bit that could make all the difference.

"Bryan," she pleads, and her voice catches in her throat, her chest heavy. She wishes he would do something else, anything less dangerous, but she knows he never will. He's there for Kim now in a way he never was when she was a little girl, and that's all Lenore can fairly ask. She learned the first go around that she can't change who he is. The best she can hope for is that he'll try and be safe.

"Hey," he says gently, perching beside her on the bed. "This is nothing, Lenny. I promise." He leans down, his lips grazing her bare shoulder, and she clings to those words – Bryan hasn't always done what she's wanted him to do, but he doesn't promise easily, and he never goes back on those promises when they really count.

"Good," she answers quietly. "Kim needs you." He smiles, and Lenore knows how much it means to hear that. For so many years, she coped with his absences by telling herself – and him, when she was especially angry – that Kim was better off without him popping in and out of her life on a whim. Once Stuart came into the picture, it had been even easier to believe. "I need you," she adds softly, before she can stop herself.

She watches him swallow, his brow furrowed in thought as he smoothes her hair off her face. "I love you, Lenny," he tells her quietly, and she feels that last wall, that last bit of resistance, melt away. She may very well be making an awful mistake, but it certainly wouldn't be her first. "You and Kim…that's all that matters to me."

* * *

It's good to have a few days alone with Kim. They vacation in the backyard, lying arm to arm in the big hammock strung up by the pool. It may not be Europe, but Lenore, at least, has lost her passion for traveling. She suspects it will likely be the same for Kim, but despite the odds, she hopes not – Lenore has had a lifetime to see the world, and her little girl should know there is more good out there than bad past the expanse of her backyard.

"I don't know if I can go back," Kim tells her softly, and Lenore frowns.

"To school?"

"They're all so…different from me," Kim murmurs. "I feel like I'm pretending, and they can all see right through me."

"Oh, sweetie," she answers, her heart breaking in her chest as she curls an arm around her daughter, pulling her close. They used to lie this way when Kim was little, but she's all grown up now, grown and hurting, raw around the edges where her trust has been worn away. "You are the bravest person I know. Think of everything you've been through. You can handle college." She tips Kim's face up, pressing a kiss against her forehead. "And everyone sees what I see – a beautiful, accomplished, intelligent woman that they would be lucky to know. What you've been through is always going to be a part of you, honey. But it doesn't define you, and others certainly can't see it on your face."

She isn't sure if Kim believes her, but she at least agrees to give it another semester.

Oddly enough, it's the first time Lenore believes herself, and the next day she doesn't wear the silk scarf to work. If she expects Kim to face the world head on, the least she can do is the same.

* * *

They decide to surprise Bryan again, but at baggage claim at the airport this time. It warms Lenore's heart to see the way Bryan's face lights up when he sees Kim, the smile that breaks out across Kim's face as she hurries over to hug her father. It's the same expression he wore when she used to bring Kim as a small child. She wonders if anyone ever came for him in the years between, or if it had been an endless brigade of lonely arrivals.

Over Kim's head, she meets his eye and there's a sort of silent understanding that passes between them, that they'll leave Kim in the dark until they're on more solid ground. Lenore suspects it won't last long – not with Bryan, who works in such absolutes and certainties, and Lenore has always been a terrible liar herself. And in so many ways, they're already too late; Kim's been looking at them with undisguised hope in her face since they met Bryan in that hotel in Istanbul, perhaps even since she asked Lenore what it felt like to fall in love. She's seen more than any girl her age should have to bear in an entire lifetime, but she's still like any child of divorce, waiting for her parents to realize they've made a horrible mistake and set things right.

"It was uneventful," Bryan tells them as they head for the sliding glass doors, wheeling his suitcase with one hand, his other arm slung around Kim's shoulders. "Which suits me just fine. I could do with more assignments like that."  
Lenore snorts. "If only," she says dryly.

They go to dinner, the three of them, at a small dinner off the freeway. They feel like a family, but strangely, not _their _family, the way they used to be. Bryan had been gone so often and returned so unexpectedly that family dinners hadn't been the norm when Kim was little. It's different, like how Lenore had wanted it to be fifteen years ago. It's better, even if the road there had been far more harrowing than she had ever expected.

He drops them off at home, and Lenore watches him drive away with a sort of hollow feeling in her stomach. It's funny, how she didn't mind seeing him off to the airport, but she misses him already when his car turns the corner off their street. It's the space between necessity and choice – that's what's unbearable.

They're home for approximately two minutes before Kim asks, "What's going on with you and Dad?"

Lenore turns so quickly her heel scrapes the parquet – Stuart would have had a fit if he could have seen, he took so much pride in keeping the enormous house immaculate. "What do you mean?" she demands, and even before Kim leaves over the kitchen counter and smirks, she knows her panicked tone has given her away.

"I didn't want to say anything, because I figured you'd tell me once he got back. But I guess that isn't the case. So…" with a nod of her head, she gestures towards the counter, where a forgotten newspaper lays near the coffee maker, "we haven't gotten the newspaper delivered in six months because neither of us reads it. And…" now she goes to the refrigerator, opening it up, "orange juice with pulp? Ew. Only Dad drinks that." She closes the door and turns back to face her mother, a smugly triumphant smile on her face.

And deserved, too – she's her father's daughter, no doubt about it, with those same sharper than average skills of perception. The shirts, the razor, the toothbrush, those Lenore had noticed, but the newspaper, the orange juice…those had slipped on by. She could blame Bryan for being careless, but instead she blames herself for being blind. "Oh, honey," she sighs, "I just don't want you to get your hopes up."

"Right," Kim agrees, but she's biting her lip to hold back her smile, and it's too late for that, too late for any of them to try and disentangle, really.

* * *

It's drizzling when they leave to drive Kim back to school – not enough to make for treacherous driving, but just enough that the whole world has a foggy edge about it, nothing quite in focus as they zip along the highway. It's early, and Kim's gone back to sleep in the backseat, her mouth slightly agape and one of her earbuds fallen from her ear. She looks young again, like the world hasn't hurt her beyond measure.

_Let's keep driving_, Lenore wants to say. _Just keep going_. Maybe the three of them could just disappear into the mist, and maybe on the other side of the rainstorm, things make sense and are easy again. Maybe Kim could keep dreaming of a world where she's just another college freshman, and maybe they can act like they're whole until they believe it themselves.

Bryan has one hand on the wheel, and Lenore reaches over, lacing her fingers through his free hand. He squeezes.

She knows better, that pretending has its limitations. They're fractured pieces, the three of them, chipped away by trauma and bloodshed, unraveling along with the ticking minutes of the clock. They can never go back – there is only forward, the endless expanse of highway that lies ahead.

Their shards fit together, though, into something imperfect but whole. Perhaps that's all that matters.


End file.
